Test: Writing and City Life- 2

Mesopotamia, the land between the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers, is now part of the Republic of Iraq.

After 2000 BCE, when Babylon became an important city, the term Babylonia was used for the southern region.

This language flourished until about alexanders time (336-323 BCE), with some regional changes.

There is a stretch of upland called a steppe in the north where animal herding offers people a better livelihood than agriculture after the winter rains; sheep and goats feed on the grasses and low shrubs that grow here.

Writing began when society needed to keep records of transactions because, in city life, transactions occurred at different times and involved many people and various goods. Mesopotamians wrote on tablets of clay.

Sumerian, the earliest known language of Mesopotamia, was gradually replaced after2400 BCE by the Akkadian language.

In Mesopotamian tradition, Uruk was the city par excellence, often known as the city. The connection between city life, trade, and writing is brought out in along Sumerian epic poem about Enmerkar, one of the earliest rulers of Uruk.

The face of the ruler of Aratta face was frowning.

The writing was seen as a sign of the superiority of Mesopotamian urban culture.

The earliest known temples were small shrines made of unbaked bricks.

In spite of natural fertility, agriculture was subject to hazards. The natural outlet channels of the Euphrates would have too much water one year and flood the crops, and sometimes they would change course altogether. 

Those who were put to work were paid rations.

A declaration was made about the willingness to marry, the bride’s parents giving their consent to the marriage.

Mari stands not on the southern plain with its highly productive agriculture but much further upstream on the Euphrates.

Shepherds would bring their flocks into the sown area in the summer. Such groups would come in as herders, harvest labourers, or hired soldiers, occasionally become prosperous and settle down.

Officers of this town would go aboard, inspect the cargo and levy a charge of about one-tenth the value of the goods before allowing the boat to continue downstream.

Barley came in special grain boats.

As bronze was the primary industrial material for tools and weapons, this trade was of great importance.

After a heroic attempt, Gilgamesh failed and returned to Uruk.

Gilgamesh took consolation in the city that his people had built.